1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a semiconductor inspection device and a method for manufacturing a contact probe, and more particularly, to a semiconductor inspection device including a contact probe that is electrically connected to a terminal part of an electronic device when inspecting the electronic device and a method for manufacturing the contact probe.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with high densification of semiconductor devices in recent years, external connection terminals for semiconductor devices are provided with an increasingly large number of pins. At the same time, there is also a demand for further size-reduction of semiconductor devices. Therefore, semiconductor devices are desired to have a highly dense arrangement of external connection terminals. As a known package for satisfying such desire, there is, for example, a BGA (Ball Grid Array) and a CSP (Chip Size Package).
The BGA (Ball Grid Array) and the CSP (Chip Size Package) have its bottom surface part provided with a grid-like array of solder balls. By disposing the solder balls in a grid-like manner, the pitch of the solder balls can be arranged with a narrower pitch. This enables high densification and size-reduction of the semiconductor device. Furthermore, since a high reliability is required for the semiconductor device, a reliability inspection is performed on the semiconductor device before shipment. In the reliability test, the semiconductor device is tested by actually supplying a test signal to the semiconductor device. Accordingly, contact probes connected to a tester is connected to the solder balls of the semiconductor device.
FIG. 1 is a drawing showing a contact probe according to a conventional technology. A contact probe 10, being generally referred to as a pogo pin, is illustrated in FIG. 1. The contact probe 10 mainly includes a shaft part 11, an upper part plunger 12 for connecting to the solder balls of the BGA, a lower part plunger 13 for connecting to an inspection apparatus (tester), and coil springs 14.
The coil springs 14 are disposed between the upper and lower plungers 12, 13. The coil springs 14 allow the upper part plunger 12 to be displaceable in a vertical direction (arrow direction in FIG. 1) with respect to the lower part plunger 13. Furthermore, a housing 15 is formed with a through-hole for disposing the contact probe 10 therein (See, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No.2001-255340).
FIG. 2 is a drawing showing a wire-shaped contact probe according to a conventional technology. In FIG. 2, A contact probe 20 includes a soft core 21 and a hard shell 22 disposed in a manner encasing the soft core 21. The soft core 21 is formed with a wire bonding technique. The hard shell 22 is formed with a plating method (See, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No.11-126800).
However, since the contact probe 10 employs mechanical components such as the coil springs, the contact probe 10 has a difficulty in disposing the contact probe 10 in a narrow pitch. Furthermore, since the contact probe 10 is hand-manufactured, the contact probe 10 has poor process precision, requires large manufacture cost, and is unable to be mass-produced. In addition, the contact probe 10 requiring a large number of components further increases the manufacture cost.
With the contact probe 20 formed by the wire-bonding technique, it is difficult to disposed the contact probe 20 in a narrow pitch since the contact probe 20 is formed with a complicated shape. Furthermore, owing to the wire shape of the contact probe 20, the contact probe 20 is liable to be subject to problems as permanent set in fatigue and/or plastic deformation.